HOLLAND OPERA, Amersfort

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‘Holland Opera produces opera on a high level but also very accessible for a broad audience. Especially for people who fear opera’ – Algemeen Dagblad 2007

Holland Opera – formally known as Xynix Opera (XX) – was founded in 1994 and produces new opera for children and youngsters. Since 2005 the company (under the name Holland Opera) has taken the artistic challenge, besides making new productions and scouting young talents, to produce site specifics on a large scale. In 2010 Holland Opera has settled in a historic industrial building in Amersfoort, ‘de Veerensmederij’.

It’s the aim of Holland Opera not only to attract an audience by opera, but also to move, overwhelm and win this audience for life. Most of the time the operas are newly written and sometimes rather experimental, but they always reach a large audience.

Jonathan Dove, composer: “I am full of admiration for the work of Holland Opera. They completely understand that opera, at its best, is a popular art form. Their productions embrace the widest possible audience, creating beauty in unexpected places, and appealing to the great range of theatergoers with music-making of the highest standards and visually stunning presentation. As well as reinterpreting classic works, they are creating a new repertoire for a new generation of opera-lovers – seeking out composers who are both modern and able to speak directly to a contemporary audience. Work such as theirs is vital for the regeneration of our medium, and to ensure that there will be opera in the future.”

HO has almost 20 years experience of delivering an education program to accompany its productions. Projects at schools are intertwining music with other important skills, such as reading, writing, and awareness of the environment. In recent years, the company has developed learning DVD’s for each youth production, so schools can prepare the children for the opera visit.

Holland Opera works with a variety of very diverse composers such as Selim Azíz, Jeff Hamburg, Oene van Geel, Fons Merkies and Chiel Meijering. Besides bringing modern opera to the stage, the company performs works of Purcell, Monteverdi, Moussorgsky, Prokofiev and Händel.

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